Lighting up

Reflections on literary avenues

A bright two weeks here folks, last weekend in Margate and this one in Suffolk, with some light shed on avenues towards literary success – hopefully of course towards being the novelist of the century. A few notes.

Thanks so much for the massive and kind response to the Will Self interview. I was quite restless when it got assigned and spent the week muttering darkly “Show you’re the best. Show you’re the best.” Afterwards I was pleased to feel I’d at least shown my best, and it was nice that so many of you said so too. Thank you.

The reception decided me, for now, on sniping over shotgunning. I had previously been told “monthly banger” and this week I heard “quarterly megaspike”. The logic is that names are made on a handful of major articles. If you have a column idea, I heard this week, ask how it might be a single definitive feature instead.

I imagined Substack was different, and preferred diaristic entries, but the Self and Jack Edwards interviews have become by far my most popular posts. The Edwards caught a sudden wind a few weeks after pub. So I think the thing to ask, on all counts, is what you are writing in the next six months.

Interviews feel especially rewarding. The subject lends some fame and I think it is kind of a test of your character, how well you try to know people. The interview writer is a post that can be occupied. Fortunately the best interviewers I’ve read are Lynn Barber, whose books I’ve ordered, and the NS editor, who I can ask for advice.

Thanks also for the kind words about the podcast appearance. I had yearned after that podcast with no whiff of the world the guests belonged to, so it was a thrill to feature. I found my performance voluptuously charismatic, warm and humane and luxuriated through several rewatches.

An actually magnificent performance is my colleague Faye Curran’s investigation in the Easter issue of the NS. Extraordinary in every way, a sinister and stylish odyssey into deep deep psychic and American depths, seven thousand words of pure vertigo! The CIA’s “Queen of Torture” has become a life coach and coached Faye – I think that should sell it. Read it here.

Sorry that I left off posting word counts in the comments – the Self assignment KOd me. I’ll pick it up again with April. Keep an eye out for a reading event that month and well done everyone piling in on the Canterbury pilgrimage. There is a long way to go yet but thank you for these two bright weeks. I hope you have a nice weekend :)

GM

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